


Take Care

by PresAlex



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: ADHD Character, Bad Things Happen Bingo, F/F, Original Character(s), Sensory Overload
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 14:22:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17789030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PresAlex/pseuds/PresAlex
Summary: story about my oc and sensory overload so here is heather B)





	Take Care

It slowly built throughout the day. It was a gradual thing. Early in the morning, it started with just the constant grating scrape of utensils against plates in the diner down the street from Heather’s house. She and Sidna had taken Norah down to the diner for a special breakfast before they dropped her off at school. It was a special trip since Norah’s friends' parents were taking the two girls camping and Sidna and Heather wouldn’t see her for the rest of the weekend. She was allowed to order whatever she wanted before they all hopped back into the car to drive to the elementary school.

Sidna always drove carefully, but with the traffic on the road leading back to Heather’s house, the car kept stopping and starting, moving forward and lurching to a halt repeatedly, knocking Heather forward slightly every time. Her hair had fallen out of the bun that Sidna had helped her put up and strands of it were falling in her eyes. Despite this, she couldn’t seem to move her hand from where it was clutched around the seatbelt to move the hair.

Back at the house, the dogs needed to be fed, half of them barking loudly and the other half pushing and pulling at the two women’s bodies, trying to drag them towards the laundry room where their food was kept. Heather couldn’t stop herself from pressing back against Sidna, who immediately wrapped her arms around her waist. The clock on the wall of the living room ticked loud enough that Heather couldn’t string together her thoughts properly. She took a deep breath, pushing further against Sidna for a moment and opened her eyes. Leaning up, she pressed a kiss to Sidna’s jaw, trying to play off the moment as a sudden bout of affection. Sidna smiled gently, sweeping the few strands of fair hair that had fallen into Heather’s face back into her bun, before pulling her in the direction of the laundry room to feed the dogs.

Without the need to go pick up Norah from school, the two of them had planned a date. It was just lunch so that Sidna could still work at her night job, but Heather had been looking forward to it. The two of them hadn’t had much time as of late to do anything for just the two of them in between Sidna trying to save the world and Heather trying to help her girlfriend not  _ die _ . As they sat in the restaurant, though, it took all of Heather’s attention to be able to focus on what Sidna was saying in the booth across from her over the normal din of conversation. The sleeve tied into a knot under her arm’s stump felt too tight. The neckline of her sweater was too close to her throat, too tight, too hot. The people around her seemed to be speaking louder and louder. She grabbed her glass of water and drank deeply from it to distract herself for a moment from what was happening around her. Sidna got up and moved into her booth, mistaking her jittery behaviour for annoyance at not being able to hear her over the restaurant's other patrons. Heather set down the glass, held out her hand for Sidna too hold, and pushed the overwhelming feelings down. She was going to enjoy this date. Damn her emotions.

In the evening, Heather let the dogs outside into the back yard to play and saw to Sidna getting ready. There wasn’t much to help her with so she mostly ended up sitting on her bed watching Sidna pull her cloud of dark hair into a poof at the back of her head. She wandered over to loop her arm around Sidna’s waist and press her forehead against Sidna’s spine. Her glasses fogged up slightly as she puffed out a breath against her partner’s back. 

“Get back safe,” Heather mumbled.

“You know I will.” Sidna laughed, reaching back to pat Heather on the head. She grumbled and nuzzled once more against Sidna’s back before letting her go and slipping Sidna’s cell phone into her partner’s front pocket.

“Be careful.”

“I won’t be gone very long tonight.” Sidna kissed her softly and headed for the back door.

The dogs barked at her as she left, and all of a sudden it was too much. Her mind was racing too fast for her to be able to comprehend any single thought. Her hand came up to grip painfully at her hair. She slammed the window and slid down the wall. The clock in the other room was still somehow pounding in her ears. Each time a dog barked outside felt like a punch to the side of her head. The room was too bright, the setting sun filtering through her eyelids no matter how much she squeezed them shut. Every bump on the wall behind her, every fibre in the sweater she was wearing, every strand of hair pulled to tightly up into her bun, left her shaking violently. She heard the back door reopen like a gun being shot directly in front of her face. She flinched back from the sound, feeling the impact of the back of her head against the wall behind her like a crack in her brain.

“Heather, I forgot my mask! Have you s– Oh, Heather what happened.” Sidna walked back into the room, flicking on the light only to find her girlfriend shaking on the floor. Heather tried to respond, but could only stutter out a couple words before the words were cut off by a quiet whine.

“T–Too–Too Br–bright” Sidna immediately flicked the light back off and kneeled down beside her, “L–Lou–L–Lou–d”

Heather felt rather than saw Sidna wiggle over to that she was sitting in front of Heather, her legs bracketing Heather’s own which were pulled up tightly against her chest. She carefully pried Heather’s fingers from her hair and placed her own hands over Heather’s ears. Heather’s hand came up to grasp Sidna’s right wrist tightly, a string of stumbled over apologies coming from her lips as she felt herself unintentionally dig her nails into her girlfriend’s skin. Sidna’s hand disappeared for a second as she leaned over to grab something before placing Heather’s headphones over her ears in place of her hands. She maneuvered the two of them so that Heather was held tightly against Sidna’s chest as Sidna ran her hands lightly up and down Heather’s arms, carefully untying the knot around Heather’s stump and pulling the offending sweater over her head, trying not to jostle the headphones. 

She felt like her head was pounding, but felt the painful sensations slowly leave her. The dogs had stopped barking and if she strained against the much needed muffled silence from her headphones, she could hear Sidna speaking quietly. 

“Sunglasses?” Sidna asked in such a way that Heather knew she wouldn’t need to respond if she couldn’t. She nodded back to her and felt a pair of plastic sunglasses be slid over her eyes, taking the place of her other glasses which had fallen off at some point earlier, and darkening the room further from the previous dimness brought on by the setting sun. The two of them sat tangled together on the floor for anywhere between ten minutes and two hours, Heather couldn’t really tell precisely how much time had passed. The shaking had slowly left her arms and legs leaving her tired and limp in Sidna’s lap. Sidna felt her relax but continued her soft movements as she trailed her nails lightly up Heather’s biceps and down her right forearm as though she was trying to bring feeling slowly back into a limb. She brought one dark hand up to slowly peel the headphones away from Heather’s ears, leaving time for the motion to be stopped if need be. 

“You’re back?” Sidna muttered into Heather’s hair, breath ghosting over her ear slightly due to their positioning.

“N–never left” Heather grumbled without any heat. Sidna hummed, sounding tired, “I’m...sorry”

“For?”

“This.” Heather sighed, “For me.”

“Try again.”

“What?”

“You aren’t forcing me to deal with you. Try that apology again.”

“I’m s–sorry I worried you.” Heather hazarded a guess, an annoyed question present in her tone.

“No. That isn’t what I meant. I’m not upset I just wish you would have told me sooner so that you wouldn’t have had to deal with this on your own. I worry because I care about you. It’s the same as you worrying about me when I get injured out on the streets, you know. I know these things aren’t sudden, but you also know that I don’t pick up on the warning signs. I want to be there for you, but you have to  _ let _ me be there or you first.”

“I’m sorry for not telling you.” Heather conceded, nuzzling her face into the crook of Sidna’s neck, “I thought you had too much on your plate and I didn’t want to ruin our date.”

“You always help me you just have to let me help you, okay?”

“Okay,” Heather breathed out against Sidna’s neck and turned herself around fully so that she was facing her properly. She couldn’t make out any detail in her partner’s face due to the darkness of the sunglasses, but she leaned forward anyway. She traced her hand down the side of Sidna’s face feeling the bags under her eyes, the curve of her cheekbone, the definition in her lips. Slowly, Sidna leaned forward, not moving Heather’s thumb from where it rested on the corner of her lips and kissed Heather. When Heather pulled back she rested their foreheads together and continued mapping Sidna’s face out with her fingertips.

“I’m here, okay?”

“Okay,” Heather said, “Thank you,”

“I love you too.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> request some over on my twitter @cryke_art! ill write for my ocs, the magnus archives, the penumbra podcast, critical role, septimus heap, and wolf 359!!


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